After 65 years, I've learned not to write off stories about the supernatural. Our world is full of mysteries.
I first discovered this when I was six-years-old.
One day while playing in my bedroom a man suddenly appeared. One moment nothing. The next he was four-feet away and looking at me solemnly.
Surprisingly, I was not afraid. I was more puzzled than anything and wondered why he was dressed so funny. I think I said "hi," or something to that effect with no results.
Now your probably thinking, "Oh he just had a vivid imagination and thought he saw something."
Fair enough. I did have a vivid imagination. I won't deny that. But here's some food for thought;
When I saw my Mother shortly after seeing the ghost I told her about him. My mother was a healthy skeptic but agreed to try and draw the man if I would describe him to her.
I would like to note that my mother - who passed away four years ago - was a very talented person who could play the piano like a pro, and was a very good artist.
We sat down at the kitchen table and I began describing the man I saw. After just a few minutes she stopped and looked at me strangely.
I could tell something was troubling her, but she wanted me to go on with my description. She probed every detail of his clothing, face, ect., sometimes asking me to repeat what I said.
As I talked she was sketching with a charcoal pencil onto a blank sheet of paper. A portrait began to develope. The man's hat, his jacket, his boots and sword. A dark bearded face, creased with wrinkles, was soon looking back at me from the sketch.
When I finished my narrative, after noting his uniform was gray, my Mother sat there, tapping the pencil in a mindless rhythm for several moments.
"What was on the man's belt buckle?" she asked one more time.
"Letters," I repeated. "CSA." I did know my ABC's.
She finally let her guard down and admitted she was astonished. I was in first grade and my class certainly hadn't learned anything about the Civil War yet.
Maybe on TV you wonder? We didn't have one. This was 1956. We had a radio, which I never listened to. Music wasn't one of my interests.
When my father came home from work he looked at the drawing my Mother made and shook his head in wonder.
"How is that possible?" he asked her.
Mom didn't have an answer to that. I felt like I did something wrong the way they were talking about the man, and how could I have made up a story like that?
The incident/sighting has slipped into my past. Like a ghost returning to a nameless void after trying to make contact with a six-year old boy.
The drawing my mother made that day was lost in numerous moves over the decades. I remember she went back and colored it in with gray pencil, and kept it with a stack of favorite watercolors she did.
I'm not asking you to believe anything. It was one of the strangest incidents in my life and I'll always wonder why that Confederate Cavalry officer (my Dad was a Civil War buff and came to that conclusion) appeared to me.
One more thing...NO, Dad didn't have any illustrated books on the Civil War laying around the house.
Time for me to walk on down the road...
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